Marvel Studios' head honcho Kevin Feige once promised that Avengers: Endgame would provide something no superhero movie, or trilogy, or franchise had done before: an actual ending. What he didn't warn fans who have invested the last decade of their lives in the cinematic exploits of Earth's Mightiest Heroes is that it would do it in quite so shocking a manner.

It's not just the final scenes of the film that will surprise audiences, although the implications of the actual conclusion will take many viewers time to process. Rather, directors Joe and Anthony Russo have delivered a film full of shocking moments, with bold choices throughout that frequently subvert expectations.

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It would be easy to have delivered an unthinking smackdown, after Infinity War left off with the Avengers' ranks depleted and the survivors shellshocked by their loss as Thanos eradicated half of all life in the universe. Easy, but ultimately unsatisfying and predictable. Thankfully, Endgame doesn't opt for the easy route.

The biggest shock comes early on, with a twist that literally had review audiences gasping. It's a scene that swirls together a heady mix of emotions – rage, anxiety, pity, hopelessness, catharsis – and leaves you uncertain of where the film can possibly go next.

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And one thing Endgame doesn't do is spend its much-vaunted three-hour running time delivering an endless fight scene. It's far more focused on the human than the superhuman, exploring the fallout of Infinity War even as the remaining Avengers scramble to deal with it. Yet even at its most sombre, dispiriting moments, there's also the franchise's trademark levity, providing some light in the darkness.

It's a film about moving on, and how we deal with grief and loss. The characters we've spent the last few years getting to know react in surprising, affecting ways, some finding strength and renewed purpose in the aftermath of Thanos' genocidal finger snap, others burying themselves in work, others still wallowing in their worst impulses.

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As Endgame progresses to the inevitable final, final confrontation with Thanos, it also proves itself a film about endings, large and small. Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely perform a fairly miraculous balancing act here given the extraordinary number of characters they're working with, deftly tying up individual plot threads and resolving relationship arcs stretching back to the first Iron Man film.

Of course, people haven't waited a year to see three hours of character therapy. The Avengers' plan to tackle Thanos once and for all is a desperate and complex one, and unapologetically so. With the surviving members split into sub-groups to chase disparate and overlapping objectives, Endgame brushes up against becoming convoluted – at one point, there's so much going on that it seems to forget about Hawkeye and Black Widow for a while – but ultimately a mix of high stakes and frequent, brilliantly-composed moments of action hold it together. There's a whole stretch of the film that feels like the "major crossover" issues of the source material and, short of Into the Spiderverse – which benefits from being animated – it's hard to think of a superhero movie more proud of its comic book roots than Endgame.

There are, of course, game-changing new players added to the mix for Endgame, changing the layout of the metaphorical chessboard. While several of WIRED's wildcard predictions pan out, it's never quite how we'd guessed. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) gets the lion's share of the focus, bringing the trademark charm and humour that made the Ant-Man movies so much fun, while Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) proves as much of a powerhouse as expected, but not in the ways anyone might suspect.

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It's the original six Avengers, however, who deservedly steal the limelight. Jeremy Renner finally gets to bring Hawkeye to life, showing off both skills and personality barely glimpsed in past films; Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow gets to deliver a more emotional take on the taciturn super-spy (with far better material than Age of Ultron supplied her); and Mark Ruffalo gets to deliver a Hulk performance better than any before.

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The 'Big Three' – Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America – get their dues too, with Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark and Chris Evans' Steve Rogers addressing their enmity from Civil War, and Chris Hemsworth getting to blend the more serious God of Thunder from his first two Thor films with the bawdy, ribald portrayal from Ragnarok. There's a particular point featuring the trio that will have comic fans bouncing in their seats with glee.

Endgame is not perfect, though, neither as a film in its own right or as a conclusion to what Marvel is now referring to as "The Infinity Saga". There are a few continuity gaffes that can't be made to fit – the stinger in Captain Marvel's credits doesn't gel at all with the character's entrance here, for instance – and it creates what appear, for now, to be contradictions with what little is known about the Marvel Cinematic Universe moving forwards. Not all of the film's character work rings true either, with a couple of small moments feeling out of place for both the comic book and cinematic iterations of certain characters. And, while the three hours you'll spend in the cinema breeze by, for some the film may be just that bit too busy – there's simply so much going on, the slightest lapse of concentration can raise questions.

Yet as all of Endgame's many pieces fit together for its denouement, it's impossible not to get swept up in giddy delight. The swelling of Alan Silvestri's score, a final battle that makes Infinity War's 'Battle for Wakanda' look like a minor skirmish, and a showcase of what makes every hero formidable in their own right combine for a superhero cinema experience like no other. Avengers: Endgame had a daunting task in bringing a decade's worth of film to a close, but it nails the landing in spectacular fashion. You will believe in heroes.